Monday, August 8, 2011
Correspondence between the City of cape Town and Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape
Hi! Lwandiso
We are so disappointed with the attitude of the mayor, none the less our take is as follows.
First and foremost our leadership is made out of 36 people. Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape works with more 15 informal settlement and each settlement is represented by two people in our leadership and this makes it difficult for us to select three people out of 36 people.
However we are so disappointment with mayors response as she does not have a right to detact number of delegation from our movement as we can also not detect the number of officials from the city that need to meet with us in such meeting.
furthermore she suggest that first she need to meet with maximum of three people before she can make any commitment about a possible appearance at our public meeting, and as an organization we fail to understand her in this regard as we have clearly artitulated three issues that we want her to address us on (below there is a copy of later sent to her, for your own info).
Lastly, please go ahead and make arrangement and as much as we are so disapointed however we are committing our selves in to two things, mainly
1. to struggle to elect 3 people out of 36 people
2. to organise a meeting Venue at Khayelitsha where our settlements are based.
And we will also appreciate if she can furnish us with the agenda of the meeting in advance so that three people that are going to meet with her can carry a full mandate from the organization.
thanking you in advance
Mzonke Poni
ABM WC
073 2562036
Hi! Solly
I am making a follow up to the letter which we have submitted to the
office of the Mayor requesting her to address our meeting on the 23rd
July and we never heard anything from the Mayor.
On our invitation we suggested that should she not be available on
suggested date to give us a date which she will be available on, and
we heard that on the 23rd July she was not available then after we
never heard anything from her.
I am writting to you making a follow up to our request to meet with
her. Can you please arrange this with her and advise us whether she is
willing to meet with us or not.
Below is the letter which we submitted to her office:
Attention: Honorable Mayor, Patricia de Lille
We would like to invite you to attend and address our general meeting
that will take place on the 23rd July 2011 at khayelithsa (we will
confirm the venue once you indicate your availability).
Mainly we would like you to address the following concerns:
1. The city’s intervention strategy for floods victims (mainly under
your current administration) – for the past 17 years after so called
democracy people residing within informal settlement have been the
victim of floods and all the previous mayor’s of city of Cape Town
including arrogant Noma-India Mfeketo who was the failure and Helen
Zille failed to address this issue, instead they have decided to turn
worst living conditions of our people into a charity case by providing
flood victims with dirty blankets and soup.
2. The mandate of Anti-Land Invasion Unit (under your current
administration) and money spent on keeping the unit active: – We are
much concerned with this Helen Zille initiative of anti-land invasion
unit, we feel it is a waste of tax payer’s money (10 million rand
allocated for this unit per annum) which would have been spent wisely
on delivering quality level of services to the poor not open air
toilets. As organization we have witness many unconstitutional acts
by this unit where they have been demolishing people’s structure
without any order from the court and such act is inconsistent with
section 26 of our constitution and the PIE Act.
3. Water cut off – For the past two years many poor families within
the city of cape town have been the victim of water cut offs by the
city of cape town and we are also much concerned about such act from
the city of cape town because water is life and it is the
responsibility of city of Cape Town to provide everyone at least with
sufficient water per day.
Lastly but not least we are much disappointed on your will not to
engage with community based organizations, various community based
organizations including Abahlali baseMjondolo, Anti-Eviction Campaign,
Communities for social change, Mandela Park backyarders and other
communities invited you to address their meeting which was supposed to
be held on the 26th June 2011 and you couldn’t avail yourself due to
other prior commitment which we understand that. Secondly despite the
fact that these organizations willingly moved the date from the 26th
June to 17 July and still you couldn’t avail yourself. We must say it
we are very disappointed with your actions into this regard.
We hope you will be able to secure a space on your diary to address
our gathering on the 23th July 2011, please feel free to suggest any
time that will be convenient for you while we prefer the meeting to
start at 14hrs till 17hrs.
should you not be available on the 23th of July, can you please
suggest another date and time which will suit your diary very well.
On behalf of Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape
Mzonke Poni
Chairperson
073 2562 036
www.khayelitshastruggles.com
www.abahlali.org
abmwesterncape@abahlali.org
mzonkep@gmail.com
In solidarity
Mzonke Poni
Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape Chairperson
073 2562 036
www.khayelitshastruggles.com
twitter: @mzonkep
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 2:14 PM, Lwandiso Stofile wrote:
Dear Mr Poni
Thanks for contacting the Mayor’s office again. As I indicated to you in our last interaction, the Mayor is offering to meet with a selected number of your organisation’s leadership, preferably 3, first before she can make any commitment about a possible appearance at your public meetings. Her offer still remains.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Regards
Lwandiso Stofile
Stakeholder Management Coordinator
Office of the Executive Mayor,
Tel: 0214004090
Cell: 0711184662
Fax: 0214001313
Email: Lwandiso.Stofile@capetown.gov.za